Harlan, James (1820–1899)

US politician and college president. A US senator from Iowa, he represented both the Free Soil Party (1855–61) and the Republican Party (1861–65). He supported President Abraham Lincoln, serving in his cabinet as secretary of the interior (1865–66), in which capacity he is most noted for dismissing the poet Walt Whitman from a clerical post. Returning to the US Senate (1867–73), he voted for the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. He failed in subsequent runs for senator and governor, but his long and sometimes controversial political career was rewarded when the state of Iowa placed his statue in the US Capitol.

Harlan was born in Clark County, Illinois. He grew up on the frontier and was admitted to the bar in 1850. He was president of Iowa Conference University (now Iowa Wesleyan University) (1853–55, 1869–70).